In Search Of Freedom

245 years ago, on July 4th, 1776, in Boston, Massachusetts, our forefathers signed the declaration of Independence from Great Britain. Now, there were a great many reasons why our fathers rebelled against the crown. It can’t be boiled down to just one or two things, but it was the age of enlightenment and people began to think and question everything.

There’s also the fact that the colonies were far away from England and had grown accustomed to a great deal of freedom that distance had brought them. So, when the crown began to use a heavy hand to force the colonies to toe line, resentment and the thirst for liberty grew until it overflowed into full scale war.

Liberty… Freedom…These have been an important part of the American psyche from the beginning. Before this was ever a country, deeply religious people, Christians, came to this land in search of freedom! Freedom to believe and worship as they chose. They had suffered greatly under the rule of kings who wanted to run their lives, and popes who wanted to run their worship.

These godly men and women were stuck in between the proverbial rock and the hard place, so, when opportunity arose for them to go to a new land where they could live their faith as they chose without fear, they took it.

The war for independence was a war for freedom and the liberty to determine our own course as a nation. Americans have never liked living under the rule of kings who only wanted to enrich the crown, or other government authorities who wanted to enrich themselves upon the labors of their fellow citizens.

Every war we have fought, in one way or another, was fought to maintain our freedom, or to help another country gain or keep theirs. So, countless American lives have been given up by brave men and women so that you and I, and untold millions around the world might be free.

But how much longer will we be able to keep our freedom? Men and women have died to gain and maintain this privilege we have, but today in the name of that freedom, we’re allowing ideologies that undermine our basic beliefs into our schools, our colleges, and our government.

And as if that weren’t enough, we’re letting them come into the Church as well. Worldly philosophies and ideologies that aren’t even Christian (Critical Race Theory, Gender Fluidity, and Intersectionality), are allowed into the Church under the pseudonym of social justice, or equality. Outside enemies have never conquered this country, but we are falling victim to enemies from within. They are the little foxes that spoil the vine (Son 2:15). And if they are allowed to continue, they will destroy this country and turn it into a Marxist nightmare.

We long for freedom, and we thought we were free, but for several years now, our freedoms have been chipped away at, little by little, bit by bit. We’re like the frog in the pot where the heat slowly increases, and it doesn’t realize it’s being boiled alive until it’s too late.

And the reason the freedoms we have are being eroded away is because by and large, we’ve turned away from the Source of liberty and looked to men like ourselves. But men cannot give us true freedom, only God can do that!

Our founding fathers knew this and even enshrined that truth in the Declaration of Independence when they wrote: *We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Friends, the freedoms that men give, can be taken by men, but when God gives men freedom, though man may try to take it, they will fail because when the Lord makes you free, like Jesus said—you will be free indeed!

So, what is freedom, or liberty, exactly? How can we get it? Well first, I think it’s important to know that…

I. People have been looking for freedom for thousands of years.

Jdg 2:16 Then the LORD raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them.

Earlier I said that freedom has been a part of the American psyche since the beginning, and that’s true. But it’s true because it’s been something that men have pursued throughout history. The quest for freedom is a theme that’s found throughout the Bible.

Ever since Genesis, chapter 3, where mankind lost his freedom by rebelling against God, and enslaving himself to sin, mankind has desired to have that freedom once again. But that perfect freedom that God created in the garden of Eden was gone, and the long-term effects of that have been devastating on mankind, both physically and spiritually from that time on.